For the avoidance of any doubt: the Palmerston North Linux Users’ Group will not have its usual meeting at the Milson Community Centre this month, as the holiday season is upon us. There are tentative plans for a pizza meet in the Victoria Esplanade on the evening of Friday 17th December; we will post more details about this as they become available. Watch this space!
Author: Tom Ryder
November: 3CX and Selenium
Date
7pm, Wednesday, 10 November 2021
Topic 1/2: VoIP PBX with 3CX
Speaker: Nick Skarott
Nick has been spending the lockdown trying to teach himself software PBX systems for Voice-over-IP phones. He will discuss his journey through a couple of different platforms, and why he’s settled on using 3CX.
Topic 2/2: Selenium browser automation
Speaker: Scott Davies
Scott will demonstrate the use of the Selenium browser automation tool, best-known as a means of running automated tests for software, and “other useful things”, including automatic web form completion. He says to expect surprising performance, along with a few gotchas…
Scott’s presentation will consist of demonstrating some uses of Selenium in Ubuntu with Java for automated testing, and in its own dedicated IDE.
Download slides (application/pdf, 576 KiB)
Venue
Cost
$2 gold coin donation
COVID-19 restrictions
- Masks must be worn, unless medically exempt.
- Guests must sign in using either the COVID-19 tracer app or the paper register.
- We are prohibited from using the kitchen, so there will be no coffee/snack break. We recommend bringing your own drink bottle.
Agenda
- 7:00pm: Welcome (John Flower)
- 7:10pm: Topic 1/2: VoIP PBX with 3CX (Nick Skarott)
- 8:00pm: General business (John Flower)
- 8:10pm: Topic 2/2: Selenium browser automation (Scott Davies)
- 9:00pm: Doors close
October: NULL
As was the case last month, the Palmerston North Linux Users Group will not have its usual monthly meeting for October, due to continued uncertainty around the timing of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and our venue’s consequent availability. At the time of writing, we expect to see you all in November.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RFunvF0mDw
September: NULL
The Palmerston North Linux Users Group will not have its usual monthly meeting for September, due to uncertainty around the timing of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. We hope to see you all in October.
August: Blend Ladders
Date
7pm, Wednesday, 11 August 2021
Topic 1/2: Nodes in Blender for Geometry/Procedural Art
Speaker: John Flower
John will demonstrate the use of nodes in Blender, the free software 3D creation suite.
In addition to creating materials as just described using all the settings on all the materials panels, Blender allows you to create a material by routing basic materials through a set of nodes. Each node performs some operation on the material, changing how it will appear when applied to the mesh, and passes it on to the next node. In this way, very complex material appearances can be achieved.
Blender manual
Watching John use Blender is a thing of beauty—if you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out!
Topic 2/2: The Freedom Ladder
Speaker: Tom Ryder
The Free Software Foundation’s position at the forefront of software freedom for users, with instruments like the GNU General Public License and the Defective by Design anti-DRM campaign, has often led to criticism of them as too hardline, or too purist, especially for less technical people. A more recent effort made in part to dispel this image has been the Freedom Ladder, a campaign to encourage users new to free software to take a first step, simply by replacing one proprietary program they use with a free software substitute, and building on their new freedom gradually from there.
By supporting them in taking a step at a time, we’re confident that we can help bring more people to a fully free setup than ever before. We’re calling this campaign the “freedom ladder,” and we need your support to help others begin climbing it.
The journey begins with a single step: climb the freedom ladder
Tom will discuss a few things he learned in watching and participating in the initial IRC meetings for this campaign.
Download slides (application/pdf, 468 KiB)
Cost
$2 gold coin donation.
- Agenda
- Welcome
Chair: John Flower - Nodes in Blender for Geometry/Procedural Art
Speaker: John Flower
7:10pm - Break
7:50pm
Tea, coffee, & biscuits
Donations collected - General Business
8:05pm - The Freedom Ladder
Speaker: Tom Ryder
8:10pm - Doors close
9pm
- Welcome
Job: NextCloud support
Rob Elshire writes:
I am a long time (20+ years) Free Software user—desktop, server, cloud, scientific, business, and personal uses. I am based in Palmerston North. I have recently taken on the role of science advisor for a Māori agribusiness collective. At the moment, I am also doing some of the technical work for them. This group is super keen to use free/open source software for their infrastructure as it fits well within Te Ao Māori.
I am looking for someone who is able to provide user support and training for Nextcloud. The administration of the instance is sorted. Perhaps someone at the PLUG would be interested in picking up some work?
Please contact Rob at rob@elshire.org if you’re interested in this opportunity.
June: Linux on Windows and Booting from the Cloud
Date
7pm, Wednesday, 9 June 2021
Topic 1/2: WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)
Speaker: Nick Skarott
WSL is the Windows Subsystem for Linux, a way to run not only console based Linux applications but also now GUI Linux applications on a Windows 10 host. Nick will walk through the setup and demo its capabilities.
Topic 2/2: Practical PXE boot
Speaker: Stephen Worthington
Bring your laptops! Stephen brings us a Part 2 to PXE booting—run a Linux distro on your machine tonight—without it even touching the hard drive—over a live network!
Continue reading “June: Linux on Windows and Booting from the Cloud”May: OhMyZsh and Gemini
Date
7pm, Wednesday, 12 May 2021
Topic 1/2: Competitive Programming—OhMyZSH
Speaker: Tim-Hinnerk Heuer
A short introduction to becoming effective with OhMyZSH with a focus on competitive programming with C++. This will be free-form, so contributions are welcome. I’ll show you how you can become effective with CP on websites such as HackerRank, LeetCode and CodeChef using nothing but the shell, Vim, and the websites. You’ll need to be very proficient with a programming language for competitive programming. I would recommend C++ and Python as the two languages of choice, but you can use a lot of languages such as JavaScript, Java, and many more.
Hopefully we can all learn something in this session and most importantly—have fun.
Topic 2/2: Gemini
Speaker: Giovanni Moretti
Continue reading “May: OhMyZsh and Gemini”Gemini is a new internet protocol which:
https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
– Is heavier than gopher
– Is lighter than the web
– Will not replace either
– Strives for maximum power to weight ratio
– Takes user privacy very seriously
March: rsync and Quasar
Date
7pm, Wednesday, 10 March 2021
Topic 1/2: rsync
Speaker: Tom Ryder
You’d think copying files between two different machines would be a relatively simple task, but it’s fraught with all sorts of subtlety and wastefulness. The rsync tool changed everything—fast, efficient, accurate file copies, right down to preserving file permissions, compressed transfer, and differential transfer—transferring only changed data. Tom will provide an introduction to command‐line rsync and a treatment of a couple of applications using it: the Grsync GUI, and the Dirvish backup system.
Topic 2/2: Quasar
Speaker: William Bell
William will demonstrate projects with the Quasar VueJS JavaScript
framework, and how to use it with Docker.
Networking help for member
Longtime member Palmerston North Linux Users Group John Eyres writes:
Hi, at [last week]’s meeting I asked if anyone could help with UPS and
networking for the guys I work with. They have muscular dystrophy, and can’t move/breathe on their own. The UPS works OK, but the batteries are getting old. Their cabinet is too small. … Please email me if you have any ideas. They do their own scripting, home
automation and development…
John includes some photos below. Please get in touch with him at computerjohney@gmail.com if you can help!
